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This is getting a Little Crazy.; we need to take a look at somethings.
Topic Started: Sep 28 2011, 08:28 PM (1,138 Views)
cryptc
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WhenWizardsWar,Sep 29 2011
06:07 PM
Is this an ok thread to add a tiny nit pick about dms being careful that they dont "tell us how we react our feel?". Ive seen a few do it here and i didnt say anything because they were busy, but telling players how they react or feel about something as far as i am concerned is at the top of the list, right there in the number one spot of DO NOTS as a dm. If you want to force players to react s certain ways, thats what saves are for.

Pardon me for throwing that in, this topics been nagging at me as its progressed so while we are nitpicking i figured....

Agreed there, DM's job is to describe what happens, and tell things in such a manner that you might feel that way, not just "you see a corpse and are disgusted", instead they should describe it well enough that you really are disgusted and rp that...

That said, too many players don't really react to anything

DM "The 12 foot demon lord stands only two feet away from you, the searing heat of his breath almost burn your eyebrows, and the smell of sulphur is most akin to being in a hen house full of year old rotten eggs, its eyes gaze at you, 'You dare summon me?'"

Player: "*spits in his face* Who's your daddy!"

ok maybe a bit exagerrated, but you get my point ;) it's a two sided coin, players need to give a bit too...
"One of the most curious statements I've seen on this list is that PlaneScape is a logical world. I must have erred. I was trying to create a world that defied logic." - David 'Zeb' Cook
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Agony_Aunt
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WhenWizardsWar,Sep 29 2011
02:48 PM
All of the dm events i have been in have been massivly long

I think you'll find only Duke is really capable of running the mega long events. However, as he runs a lot of events, then its not surprising you have come to this conclusion.

The rest of us DMs have lives (Duke is from Wales... say no more :D ) and events are more likely to last from 1 to 2 hours on average.... saying that, i've not really witnessed many US based DM events, so maybe they also have some staying power.

As for your point about seeing us online more, well, we are around more often than you perhaps think. Quite a few DMs come on with Alts that are not know (even to fellow DMs) as we monitor and encourage things that way. And if you worry about not getting your RP XP, i always try and remember who i've interacted with and who has impressed me and go around with my magic XP wand the next time i'm on as a DM.... admittedly, as sometimes I don't cross with some people too much then there can be a significant delay between the RP and the XP... but hey, you don't only RP to get XP or loot do you?
Stepped down as admin, but still lurking.
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Ravel's Heart
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I have a long post that I will probably not bother dropping in here since most of the points have been made by others already, but there are a couple of things I would like to say.

1) Overemphasis on "Events"

I think there is too much focus on "events", as if they were the equivalent of winning some sort of roleplay lottery.

Most of the DMs here spend a fair amount of time on as players as well. Other than the bits of XP and the possibility of getting lewt, is there really any difference between, say, participating in an event run by Agony, Cere, or Liquid and RPing with one of their characters?

2) Just ask!

For the sake of disclosure, since Agony, cryptc, and Mr. O. have already posted, I have been involved in one DM event since I started in SCoD. Like many people, I dislike large events and avoid IC gatherings of more than 4 or 5 people, which probably contributes to my lack of involvement in other SCoD "events".

My one experience was with DM Lemonade (who was really a wonderful player and DM) during a period of time when I was not very active in SCoD and was trying to get back into it. At the time, I was using an alt forum account and Gamespy account, and I responded to an open forum thread in which she essentially said, "If there is anyone that wants a DM's assistance for an event, please ask."

Afterwards, when I was thanking her for the splendid job she had done I came clean on who I was. She was wryly amused that the only request for a plot came from another DM! :D

The point I am making is this, many of you are RPing things which the other DMs and I know nothing about. If you are interested in having something specific happening to your PC, you are more likely to get someone's attention if you let us know what you want.

From my standpoint, specific requests with fairly hard endpoints are preferred. This is because my playtime is limited, and I have had too many plots left open in my time:

"I would like my character to finally confront the fiend that murdered her mother."

"My PC is hiding in Sigil because he is wanted for a crime he didn't commit. It would be pretty awesome if a bounty hunter showed up and Thebor had to prove his innocence."

"Bela believes that she is an only child. What if someone arrived one day claiming to be her sister? What if that person knew details about Bela's life she had never told anyone else? What if her sister needed help doing something Bela thought was wrong?


Roleplay is collaborative. So, get collaborating!

3) Get out of the Rat Race

Quoting the original post:

Quote:
 
I have a number of friends who prefer to only play one main character. This usually means they end up lvl 30, and then are pretty effectively cut off from participating in anything anymore, because they'll "take over" the event with their higher experienced character. Most who have characters like this DON'T want to do that. They want to have fun with everyone else, and feel like they contributed in something. While we need events with specific lvl ranges so the lowbies aren't left out, we also need some directed at the high-lvl players too. Sometimes, ESPECIALLY the higher lvls, because they can't fall back on "Well, I could always go hunt and gain my next lvl" like a lower lvl character can when things are slow.


This strikes me as nearly incomprehensible.

I must have missed the part where we forced people to level. If you feel like DM-event level restrictions are minimizing your chance to participate in things don't level!

When I DM, I don't so much exclude epics as go out of my way to engage the low-level PCs. I do this for a lot of reasons: lowbies have far fewer partying options than mid- and epic levels; lowbies often have less gear and are happy to get +4 t-shirts ;) ; it is much, much easier to balance an encounter for five level 5 PCs than it is to balance an encounter for five level 27 PCs; and...

...Most importantly, I would hope that by the time your PC reaches level 30, he or she has interacted meaningfully with just about every player on the server. And by "meaningfully", I mean beyond buying and selling things for your next excursion to a hunting area. If your character has reached level 30, and doesn't have those attachments, it's time to ask yourself why.

I don't really feel like DMs should be creating events for level 30 PCs. They really ought to have plenty to do on their own.

I want to be sympathetic on this point, but I just find that I can't be. It's probably because I play serial low level characters, but since you've mentioned it...

4) I've Arrived! Where is Everyone!

Quoting the OP again:
Quote:
 
Sometimes, ESPECIALLY the higher lvls, because they can't fall back on "Well, I could always go hunt and gain my next lvl" like a lower lvl character can when things are slow.


This part reminds me of one of my boyhood basketball idols.

Dallas Comegys was a very talented basketball player at DePaul University in the early 1980s. He was 6'9", very strong and had a deft touch for such a big man. During his sophomore year he complained to the legendary Joey Meyers that his teammates weren't getting him the ball often enough, and Meyers snapped "You're a big boy! Go get it yourself!"

Meyers was encouraging his star player to work hard on the offensive glass, but RP is much like basketball in this way: nothing good ever happens if you are being passive. If things are "slow"...why are they slow?

If no one is making anything happen and you decide to go level, this leads to a pattern. You fill slow RP periods with hunting, and then, when hunting no longer is profitable, you are left with a maxed out PC and no RP ties.

Characters can stagnate with time. It's one of the reasons I play them one after another, rather than staying with one PC for a long period of time. (There are advantages and disadvantages to both approaches, actually.) At the end of the day, however, no one is responsible for the relationships that your PC has formed but you.

Yes, I know that there are cliques and social groups and closed door RP, and whatnot... At the end of the day, every PC enters Sigil through the bazaar. If your character doesn't have enough attachment to other people, it's time for him or her to start reaching out to someone.

Finally, I would like to thank Kari for her original post, despite the fact that she is not as active as she once was. It can be hard to speak up when you feel like things are not fair, and it's good to get things out in the open like this.

--Ravel
"What can change the nature of a man?"
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Eandril
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I admit that I did not read all posts in this thread and just skimmed most of them, but I think I do get overall point.

It's good that this is discussed and I am glad to see how mature both admin team and players are able to talk about this. In my opinion, that only shows that there is lot of effort from both sides to make gameplay and experience of the server the best it can be.

Also I do admit that I am not that active player on SCoD as much as I used to be, so I might not have the best insight of how the situation is, but as far as I know, DM team always wanted to encourage players to make things happen and be there more as "provider" than actual "narrator".

I am not saying that DMs setting up events is wrong, not even thinking about that, just that also from my personal preference, I like when players become the movers of events, while DMs are there to help create stuff player can't, mostly mechanical wise.

That being said I just think that if there is no DM around, its time to step up and try creating something on your own. It might not pay off directly, but in the long run (and there were many examples of that before) your actions will catch attention of those who can make whole thing even better. Also this way it feels much more natural than just "hop" in to event which is announced on forum.
There's men, underground, who have never seen the sun, but they really know how to party. Little men from underground who have never seen the sun but the really know how to party. They rise their wooden pints and they yoik and sing and they fight and dance 'till the morning!


You there! Dance with me, till the end of the world!
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WhenWizardsWar
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cryptc,Sep 29 2011
06:33 PM
DM "The 12 foot demon lord stands only two feet away from you, the searing heat of his breath almost burn your eyebrows, and the smell of sulphur is most akin to being in a hen house full of year old rotten eggs, its eyes gaze at you, 'You dare summon me?'"

Player: "*spits in his face* Who's your daddy!"

ok maybe a bit exagerrated, but you get my point ;) it's a two sided coin, players need to give a bit too...

Quote:
 
DM "The 12 foot demon lord stands only two feet away from you, the searing heat of his breath almost burn your eyebrows, and the smell of sulphur is most akin to being in a hen house full of year old rotten eggs, its eyes gaze at you, 'You dare summon me?'"

Player: "*spits in his face* Who's your daddy!"

ok maybe a bit exagerrated, but you get my point ;) it's a two sided coin, players need to give a bit too...


Honestly this isnt abit exagerated and any player who says that havent seen this i call them a damn liar and banish them to the nine levels of hell hahaha.

I play:
Miranda Ildesserin-"You have no idea what fear is, the greatest fear a mother can have is that of her child growing up...alone"
Eisinar Mindblade: Illithid Soul Knife: "As long as I have my mind, i am never with out a weapon".
Xil'ar'ran'oss-Beholder Psion:What do you mean "IF" looks could kill?
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Ceremorph
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You'll probably notice one thing that the ones who get accused of being "DM Favorites" have in common:
1. Large groups of PCs that their chracter interacts with on a regular basis
2. An actual backstory that affects their actions
3. Goals for what they do, rather than just "let's go kill stuff and get purples!"
4. Regular RP-based posts in the forums

If you feel you're not getting "attention", take a look at your character and what he or she is doing. If your entire experience is only talking to people to get grinding groups together, a lack of emoting and character goals, and you ignore the forums except to link to Slovakian death-metal bands and cats with captons, it's likely nobody on the DM team knows who you are... and then yes, you ARE depending upon the luck of the draw in finding an event. Whereas if you do those things, it's more likely a DM is going to try to seek you out and draw you into an event.

Neli can vouch for this. Over a year ago, when I was DMing heavily and everyone knew who Seethe was, I caught wind through my character at the time she was interested in a spelljammer (among other things). Knowing this, I not only waited for a chance to get her into RP, but even tweaked an event I was running to let her and her companion find a shipwrecked gith jammer and explore it. In a separate event that was run by Ravel, my own (NG) character had to deal with a vision of Neli powering a jammer with the trapped soul of one of her friends. The RP that she was doing out of events at the time actually influenced the events themselves, AND made us as DMs want to seek her out.

In other instances, I've had people randomly wander into events I've run, and impress me enough that I've gone out of my way to build events around their characters... and it really is a case of character over player. I absolutely love RPing with, to give an example, Kree in-game... but I would positively dread having to run her in an event when I can't understand what she's saying 99% of the time (love ya Kree!) But I'd take her other characters in a heartbeat.

And of course, every DM is going to be different... but the one universal truth is that we're not going to go out of our way to pull in antisocial players. I've actually had a player tell me "I don't want to be in the event unless there's going to be lots of things to kill and great loot"... and you can be certain I never again made even the slightest effort to pull them into my events, even if they were hack-n-slash based (hint: my events never are).
We rode on the winds of the rising storm,
We ran to the sounds of the thunder.
We danced among the lightning bolts,
and tore the world asunder.
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DM_Duke
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Ceremorph,Sep 30 2011
12:32 AM
You'll probably notice one thing that the ones who get accused of being "DM Favorites" have in common:
1. Large groups of PCs that their chracter interacts with on a regular basis
2. An actual backstory that affects their actions
3. Goals for what they do, rather than just "let's go kill stuff and get purples!"
4. Regular RP-based posts in the forums

If you feel you're not getting "attention", take a look at your character and what he or she is doing. If your entire experience is only talking to people to get grinding groups together, a lack of emoting and character goals, and you ignore the forums except to link to Slovakian death-metal bands and cats with captons, it's likely nobody on the DM team knows who you are... and then yes, you ARE depending upon the luck of the draw in finding an event. Whereas if you do those things, it's more likely a DM is going to try to seek you out and draw you into an event.

Neli can vouch for this. Over a year ago, when I was DMing heavily and everyone knew who Seethe was, I caught wind through my character at the time she was interested in a spelljammer (among other things). Knowing this, I not only waited for a chance to get her into RP, but even tweaked an event I was running to let her and her companion find a shipwrecked gith jammer and explore it. In a separate event that was run by Ravel, my own (NG) character had to deal with a vision of Neli powering a jammer with the trapped soul of one of her friends. The RP that she was doing out of events at the time actually influenced the events themselves, AND made us as DMs want to seek her out.

In other instances, I've had people randomly wander into events I've run, and impress me enough that I've gone out of my way to build events around their characters... and it really is a case of character over player. I absolutely love RPing with, to give an example, Kree in-game... but I would positively dread having to run her in an event when I can't understand what she's saying 99% of the time (love ya Kree!) But I'd take her other characters in a heartbeat.

And of course, every DM is going to be different... but the one universal truth is that we're not going to go out of our way to pull in antisocial players. I've actually had a player tell me "I don't want to be in the event unless there's going to be lots of things to kill and great loot"... and you can be certain I never again made even the slightest effort to pull them into my events, even if they were hack-n-slash based (hint: my events never are).

Q.F.T

Period.
Because I just win - DM Duke.
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Mr_Otyugh
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On other hand, if they already have story built around them... shouldn't we help the others to establish their stories and pull them in? ;) It's like "You have much, so I give you more" which kinda sounds wrong way of approaching.

That said, I don't think anyone should be ignored, well there is couple of incidents that there has been someone blatantly say "I'm not going to roleplay unless I really have to" to them I'll just say fare thee well... no offense, but we do events for people who preferably does some effort and are here to roleplay, being roleplay server it's kinda prequesite for events :P
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